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No longer have my Surface Pro 2 and feel depressed

Megalith

New Member
Long story short, I took a gamble on returning my month-old Surface Pro 2 for another because of defects (piece of dust under the screen, stylus clicking by itself in the corner, and backlight bleeding). I ended up going through two units in the store and both had dust trapped under the screen. They ended up telling me that they had no more units, though I am pretty sure this was a lie to prevent me from going through their entire stock.

I've been carrying my SP2 around with me everywhere I go, so now that I no longer have it, I feel super depressed. The good news is that I can probably re-buy the SP2 off the website when a nice Type Cover bundle deal inevitably shows up, though I am convinced that my next unit will have dust or backlight bleeding as well. They really, really need to step up the quality assurance.
 

ChemCat

New Member
1 for me, 1 for my elderly dad, 1 for my elderly mom, and 1 for my sister. Both my parents are loving them. Sure beats their android asus infinity tf 700 I got them last year.
 

oion

Well-Known Member
1 for me, 1 for my elderly dad, 1 for my elderly mom, and 1 for my sister. Both my parents are loving them. Sure beats their android asus infinity tf 700 I got them last year.

But you got the older Surface RT on discount, didn't you? People are going to have much higher expectations from the Surface Pro 2s...
 

ChemCat

New Member
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bluegrass

Well-Known Member
Long story short, I took a gamble on returning my month-old Surface Pro 2 for another because of defects (piece of dust under the screen, stylus clicking by itself in the corner, and backlight bleeding). I ended up going through two units in the store and both had dust trapped under the screen. They ended up telling me that they had no more units, though I am pretty sure this was a lie to prevent me from going through their entire stock.

I've been carrying my SP2 around with me everywhere I go, so now that I no longer have it, I feel super depressed. The good news is that I can probably re-buy the SP2 off the website when a nice Type Cover bundle deal inevitably shows up, though I am convinced that my next unit will have dust or backlight bleeding as well. They really, really need to step up the quality assurance.

I might not be a really close observer of such things as a spec of dust under the glass. Is something you can see without turning on the Surface or does it need to be on to see dust under the glass. Same for bleeding I guess. Do you set it to a black screen somehow and look for a slight white shadow around the outter edges. I would think there would always be a slight ghostly light appearance around the edges but I'm not sure to what level it becomes not acceptable. I'm going to pull mine out the bag and see if I can detect any of these defects you mention. I'm wondering if the descrepencies you observed are on most of our Surfaces since they were on the one you purchased and two new ones in stock at the store.
 
OP
M

Megalith

New Member
To check for dust and specks, you can use file explorer or some other application with a white background. For backlight bleeding, turn up the brightness all the way and run the "blank" screensaver, which blacks out the screen.

The truth is that these issues are practically invisible during 90% of usage. But for me, once I see a defect, I can't unsee it---I'm totally anal about my electronics.

FYI: I had already gone through three other SP2 units before this, and all had dust and/or backlight bleeding.
 

bluegrass

Well-Known Member
You're probably s?%& out of luck than in finding one that's perfect or a store that will allow opening brand new ones until you find one that is perfect.
 

oion

Well-Known Member
You're probably s?%& out of luck than in finding one that's perfect or a store that will allow opening brand new ones until you find one that is perfect.

I think this is a case of pure OCD. If any guests are reading this and wondering if all the Surfaces have defects, just keep that in mind... :p It turns out my Surface 2 has backlight bleeding, but I never see it under normal usage; in a different thread when someone asked about it, I just looked at my screen under normal conditions so I thought there was no backlight bleed at all. As OP says, the only time to see it is on a black background with brightness turned to 100%--basically the Surface startup screen, and that's it. Unless you're using your Surface outside in the sun, I don't see how anyone would run across that, and when watching movies, it's not uncommon to reduce ambient light and reduce the screen brightness too. No specks under my screen (never seen a flaw like that, only dead pixels from the early LCD generations).

No electronics manufacturing will get rid of all defects; Apple certainly has its problems if anyone does a simple search. As usual, it's either a small minority of cases usually related to specific batches OR the vast majority of users just deal with it.
 

bluegrass

Well-Known Member
Or since he said he can't live the spec of dust or the bleed, he should just not look for these defects that require not normal working environment to se them. Then he will not have to live with the flaw that takes a special screen to see. I can kind of relate to what he said. A lot of us know of a little flaw in something we own or even wear but nobody else ever sees it, but knowing it's there just bothers you. Just don't nit pic to find a very obscure flaw is the best advice I have. When you get right down to it, there isn't much in life that is a hundred percent black or white.
 
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